Do I tell DD she's not nice?

[Weeeheee]

DD (20) is due to meet the OW in person soon at XH wedding to her.

DD has chatted online with OW a few times (she lives abroad). DD said the other day that she's looking forward to meeting OW, as she seems nice.

I'm desperate to discuss with DD why she's not nice.

OW persisted in chasing XH and encouraging him to end our marriage and our family life. OW was married herself, so was also cheating on her husband. She has a young child, so also broke up their family.

I do not blame OW for XHs choices. He ended our marriage, not her.

But anyone who pushes a person to end their marriage and leave their family, and move a 10 hour flight away from their own children is not a nice person.

A woman who cheats on her husband is not a nice person.

I want to discuss with DD why she thinks she's nice when she behaved in the way she did.

I know I shouldn't, as I'll sound bitter.

I'm not bitter at all - life is the best its been without XH in it.

But OW is not a nice person, and as a now adult, DD should be mature enough to consider the bigger picture.

I'm probably going to leave it, but would you say anything to DD?

This sums it up perfectly!

Lots of people cheat on their partners, fall in love with other people and make silly sometimes tragic choices for love and are very nice people. Are you a nice person? Are you perfect? Stop being so black and white and trying to control everything. You're bitter. I would be too. But release it because otherwise it will eat you up.

No

let her make up her own mind. If she’s as bad as you say she’ll learn. You need to be careful

Whatever your feelings towards what the woman has done it is none of your business. If your daughter is to maintain a relationship with her father this woman is going to be around. If they can be nice to each other it will make everyone’s life easier. Having you drip feeding hate into her ear will not make your daughter happy.

Your last sentence in brackets indicate that you're coming from a place of thinking my hate of what XH did colours my judgement as a parent.

There is never a time or place on God's green earth that I would even allude to the fact those videos exist, let alone show them to her. That's a disgusting suggestion.

Why on earth would you feel the need to write that unless you felt I needed to hear it?

You appear to think my end goal is to do whatever is in my power to ensure DD doesn't like OW.

It's isn't. My end goal is to help DD live her best life as she navigates this car crash. And to help her to realise that being seduced by fripperies doesn't make a person nice. Their actions do. OWs actions were not nice towards her own ex husband nor inadvertently towards DD due to her encouragement of XH to leave the continent, and his children, for her.

I will not be responding to you anymore. I will not engage with a person who feels I need to be told not to hurt my DD so viscerally to get her to think what you think I want her to think.

I thought the title of your thread meant you were wondering if you should tell your DD that SHE wasn't nice!

I think your DD, at 20, is old enough to make up her own mind.
It will feel very different when she is away from you and actually in the company of her dad & the OW. She may find she doesn't like the OW in person and it may well bring up feelings of jealousy because her dad has essentially chosen the OW over her.

Relationships between dad's & daughters are complex and your exH has damaged his relationship with your DD through his selfish actions.
I wouldn't say anything much before she goes to meet the OW but I would be prepared for dealing with the aftermath of the visit & the confusion of feelings it might generate.

Yes I’d tell her

not for revenge or to cause unnecessary drama just because she should have all the facts on a person before deciding whether they are a nice person

i I think you can maintain the moral high ground that MN is so obsessed with if you remain factual and objective about it when you tell her

my children are young but I’m very clear about the impact their dad leaving has had on all our lives. I don’t see why I should lie for the man and make out he is someone he is not

I understand your pain however everything she did your XH also did. He cheated on his wife, he left his family and moved miles from his family so opening this conversation is tricky. I used to always think that if women showed solidarity and didn’t go after other people’s husbands it would save a lot of heartache however I have come to realise that a view like that makes it easy for men. They too have to take responsibility, they can say no even if they are unhappy in a relationship and request counselling before looking elsewhere to attempt to either resolve issues or come to a an agreement that things are over. The blame here is 50/50 so it is difficult to fairly call her out without also being critical of DD’s Dad and I am not sure you want to go there.

Maybe what they mean is that bad actions don't make people inherently bad. Good people can do bad things. They could do wonderful charity work, make the world a better place in lots of areas, be really kind and welcoming to your DS, all sort of good things. As well as having an affair.

She's 20 years old and she knows what happened. She's entitled to make up her own mind about people and probably will, regardless of what you tell her about the OW not being 'nice'.

But the OW can be both a woman who helped end a marriage and a nice person towards the OP's daughter.
People are nuanced and can be more than one thing & have different relationships with different people.

As PP have pointed out, to say the OW is a bad person also says that the DD's dad is. And, whatever sh*t things he has done, she will be a happier, more rounded person if she can maintain a relationship with him & not feel hatred towards him.

It's horrible & tough to do and I speak from experience here but I think you have to let the DD experience the OW on her own terms and make up her own mind. Which she will.
It's not about making it easy for the cheating dad here, it's thinking about what is in the best interests of the child overall and going forward.

I can imagine how bloody awful this is for you. But at the end of the day your DD didn't ask for her parents' marriage to split up. She now has to have OW in her life, if she wants to keep having a relationship with her dad. I wouldn't want to make that any more difficult for her than it already is.

The brackets are because the entire exchange on that matter have been in brackets, including in your posts. It may have been obvious to you that you'd never let your daughter know about the videos, but tbh it was not obvious to me. You keep talking about how you have the right, nay the duty, to talk to her about unsavoury people and how bad they are, and unless I misread it, you already showed them to your friends, so they are not a hard red line. This whole discussion is about weaponising your daughter via the OW and frankly those videos would be a good way to do it.

It was not my intention to offend you, but all I know of you is what you've said here and it didn't look entirely beyond the realm of possibility to me. Obvioisly I am glad that it is.

You say your end goal is not to make your daughter hate OW... frankly you could have fooled me, and many other people on the thread, including those who have been your daughter in this situation and are clear that what you want to do was not in their best interests. It's obvious that it's not in her best interests for you to try to direct her thoughts to negativity about her dad and stepmum.

I think people do often suddenly turn to very outraged "how could you be such a terrible person, all I care about is the kids" form of deflection when this kind of thing gets called to the fore. A few people did it the other day.

A) None of your business really if someone not married to you decides to cheat on their partner.
B) He told her that he was happily married while cheating with someone else...this says he was lying
C) People have relationships with family members from all over the world these days, no one forced him to move, he made the choice, would she have been as bad if she moved to him and separated her child/children from their family?

Your reasoning behind why you think she isnt a nice person is irrelevant. You asked should you tell your Daughter that her step mum isnt a nice person. My answer is no, let her make up her own mind.

I think this is a sad post. OP is still stuck in the timeslot when she felt the full force of her betrayal and anger at the OW. How long ago was that? OP’s daughter knows what happened, she should be free to make her own choices now. And OP needs to move on. And whilst making sex videos (did I have that right?) is really yuk, watching them with friends for a laugh really is very poor taste indeed.

I understand your feeling but your DD is trying to navigate a difficult situation the best way she can and you are attempting to derail her.
Please seek therapy.

No let your DD come to her own opinion by herself.

I can't imagine how it must feel to be wronged so much in what should be the one relationship you should be able to rely on.

You and your children have obviously been through a lot.

If your daughter sees the man who is her father, she will see the woman who is about to be his wife.

Your daughter most probably has such mixed feelings about attending this
wedding and the fact that she can superficially get on with her is most probably a saving grace.

Awful people ( and deep down you would have to be awful to do that) can be charming and nice and funny. But that doesn't make them good or trustworthy. It just makes them easy to get along with. Especially in the aftermath of trauma.

I can imagine it really stings for you to hear her say ' she is nice/seems nice'.

If she says it again, you can be true to yourself without gaslighting her. You could respond by saying ' I hope she's nice to you. But what she did wasn't nice to me'.

I hope you've got something nice planned for the day of the wedding. X

I agree with the poster who suggested words to the effect that 'OW may be superficially nice but be careful as I suspect she'll always put her own interests before yours.'
I think I'd add in the 'be careful' advice - then DD will see where you're coming from, a position of concern for her feelings, which has clearly been your default stance as a mother.

I don't mean this unkindly - what is your relationship with your daughter like generally? Can you discuss most stuff openly and honestly?

I only ask, because I am always surprised when people need to ask Mumsnet whether it's OK to have a certain conversation with their audult child.

To me, a good parent/child relationship, when the kids are adults, is open and honest without secrets or unnecessary concealment.

Everyone is entitled to some privacy, of course. But I can see nothing wrong with you sharing your very understandable feelings with your 20 year old daughter.

I think she is being either oddly naive, or even slightly malicious, telling you to your face she thinks this woman seems like a nice person. It would be different if this was years down the line and she had had loads of positive interactions with this woman. But it's obviously all too fresh and raw.

You need to respect the fact that your kids are happy to meet this woman, obviously. But they are old enough to have some tact, where you are concerned. And also listen fairly to what your feelings are.

I don't think you should necessarily try to influence them to hate this person. But to state that you disagree that she is a straightforwardly "nice person" is absolutely fair enough in my view.

This really isn't helpful.
The DD is a separate person to her mother and will experience the OW in an entirely different way.
Yes, the OW behaved badly towards the OP but this doesn't mean she will do this to the DD.
It's hard enough for children of any age to navigate their parents' marriage ending & new relationships that spring from this without one of their parents trying to colour their view of a person who is now going to be part of their life.

Just let her deal with the OW herself, OP. She's not a child or even an early teenager, she's an adult & will be able to judge the situation and act accordingly.

And wouldn't it better for her in the long run if she could establish a positive relationship with this woman?
Don't send her off feeling suspicious and uncomfortable, it's not going to help her deal with an already potentially difficult situation.
She is not you & her experience will and, should be, different.

There are many reasons you have to dislike the way this OW behaved. However, every single human being can behave in ways they are not proud of. Does one mistake mean you inherently are a bad person for life? Separating someone's behaviour from who they inherently are as a person can be a more balanced outlook.

Someone's behaviour can be influenced by all sorts of factors to make it undesirable. Its not as clear cut as black and white. Even if the behaviour ends in something undesirable.

It is valid that you may not forgive this woman and it is valid for you to have that belief. However, then you must apply that equally and therefore her Father must not be a good person either. Which you are entitled to feel also.

However, at 20 she is allowed to make up her own mind and forcing how you feel upon her is likely to cause more issues in your relationship with DD, for what purpose? There is nothing to be achieved by continued hatred. There is no end game. Its tempting to feel that you can get DD to dislike her too then youve somehow "won".

So what if DD likes her? What is the worst that is going to happen?

I would value the relationship with your DD over constructing a hate campaign for OW. If she occupies your thoughts that much, then she has in a sense won.

I wouldn’t say anything, unless you really think your DD is dumb as rocks and needs spelling out that cheaters are trash.

She knows, OP. She’s probably just tired of it all and wants whatever relationship she can still have with her father and unfortunately that includes the new woman too.

I’m sorry you’re going through this. Her wording obviously got under your skin, but let it go. She knows.

I've got a great relationship with DD @Ilovelurchers We're currently en route to the west end doing puzzles and chatting and listening/singing along to Take That.

Like I've said, I didn't respond to the nice comment in the moment. I deflected. Then reflected. And wondered. Hence the MN post.

@MandSJaffaCakesRule

2 things

1. dunno what date the wedding is. I only know the fortnight it is due to the kids being away.

2. m&s JCs are far too orangey for me. A bit like Um Bongo for crows.

Correct. And if they are capable of such treacherous, vile behaviour to the people who absolutely trust them, who they are supposed to love and care for, capable of looking them straight in the face and lying, they are untrustworthy people. It absolutely is that simple and it very definitely always goes to character.

But some who have put up with that gross behaviour can't bear to acknowledge they've saddled themselves with a liar for life. And some are cheaters and hope to minimise.

Your feelings matter more than the cheaters and cheater enablers feelings. If you want to calmly comment that a nice person doesn't behave like that, of course you should. Not a bad idea to help your daughter remember that these people are not trustworthy, and they are definitely not nice.